


Keep It In My Chest

by queeniegalore



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:49:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeniegalore/pseuds/queeniegalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The biggest sign that he was going crazy was the flush of relief he felt whenever Ray forgave him for being an asshole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep It In My Chest

**Author's Note:**

> This wouldn't have been possible without an awesome beta by meeks00, who knows what I'm trying to say even when I don't, and who endeavours to take up arms against the army of commas which always invades my work, and also novembersmith and her lovely, lovely encouragement and kind words. Thank you gals! Title is from 'Between Two Lungs' by Florence + the Machine.

“I'm not gay.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Brad stared straight ahead, straight out to the ocean. The sand he and Ray were sitting on was hot, almost burning, and he dug his hands a few inches down into the cool, damp layer below, felt at the way it clung to his skin.  
  
“Colbert, I mean it. I'm not gay. And – and I'm not fuckin' bisexual or whatever else, either.”  
  
“Okay,” Brad repeated, and he watched a woman walk one way with a tiny yap-yap dog on a lead, and another woman walk the other way with a German Shepherd. The yap-yap went nuts, but the big dog just strolled serenely on like it was above the whole thing. Brad smiled at it, a little.  
  
“So we've got that clear, then.”  
  
“Crystal.”  
  
“Good. Because I'm. Not. Gay.”  
  
Brad snuck a look sideways. Ray looked flushed and unhappy, digging at the sand viciously, eyes lowered. Brad was lost; he didn't really do...words. And this was something bigger than what he was used to. He was out of his league, and they both knew it.  
  
He scrambled for something to say.  
  
“Is _Smithson_ gay?”  
  
Ray looked up in alarm. “Uh – no? Probably not. And don't you dare fuckin' tell him you saw us, either, Colbert. He's all delicate and sensitive and shit. He'll take it wrong.”  
  
Brad raised an eyebrow. Smithson was 6'5 and built like the Hulk. Neither ‘delicate’ nor ‘sensitive’ were words that immediately sprang to mind when you looked at him. Possibly ‘brick’ and ‘shithouse’.  
  
“Don't worry. I don't think he noticed me,” Brad said dryly. “He seemed pretty distracted.”  
  
That made Ray smirk. He looked away from the miniature mine-shaft he was trying to dig and glanced at Brad. “My dick is pretty fucking awesome, dude,” he said, and he sounded almost normal, his voice only shook a little. “A nuclear bomb would have to go off before you could tear yourself off of my dick.”  
  
Brad smiled. “Yeah, there _would_ have to be some sort of apocalyptic situation before I got anywhere near your sorry excuse for a manhood,” he said, and Ray rolled his eyes. He looked calmer, less like he was about to run full tilt into the ocean and not come out. Brad wriggled his fingers in the sand.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Ray nodded, squinting out to sea. “Yeah, Colbert.”  
  
“Good.” And it was good, because Brad was running out of comforting, caring things to say.  
  
And then Ray sighed.  
  
“Look, I’m really not gay, because,” he held up his hand, waving away Brad’s protests. “Shut up. I’m not gay, because our good old American government has decided I can’t be both gay _and_ good at fucking shit up. You’d think I would have proven myself after Afghanistan, but no, as soon as I wanna get my dick sucked by another dude all that goes out the goddamn window. So I’m not gay, because against all reason and fucking common sense, I love the Marine Corps and don’t wanna be kicked the fuck out before I get to go to Iraq with you and fuck even _more_ shit up.” He took a deep breath and frowned. Brad bit his lip.  
  
“Ray,” he said, very softly. “I get it.”  
  
Ray nodded again. He looked really small, like the word ‘delicate’ wouldn’t be so far off the mark with him. But Brad knew it was a lie, knew that Ray was lethal. Dangerous.  
  
They sat in silence for a while, watching the joggers, the teenagers with their surfboards, the moms and toddlers. Brad’s feet were hot in his sneakers, and he didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be, so he toed off his shoes and socks, wiggled his feet in the sand. After a minute, Ray followed suit.  
  
“I haven’t told anyone, Colbert.”  
  
Brad leaned back on his hands, felt every single grain of sand touching him with absolute clarity. “In the military?”  
  
“In _life_.” Ray looked at him wryly. “No one knows.”  
  
Again, Brad didn’t know what to say. He had the feeling that they were having a _moment_ , and that something deep was expected of him, but he couldn’t figure out _what_.  
  
People were hard, that was the problem. Brad couldn’t…Waves were simple, and his bike was simple, and his gun was simple. But Ray, small and deadly and somehow painfully vulnerable next to him, was one of the most terrifying things he’d had to face in his life.  
  
“I have a feeling,” Brad said slowly, thinking it out, “That Smithson probably has an idea. Just a sense I got. From the way he was on his knees sucking your dick last night.”  
  
Ray rolled his eyes so massively that Brad thought he might actually sprain something. But he was smiling again, and Brad felt some of the panic in his chest ease.  
  
“Dude, come on,” Ray said, and started filling in the hole he’d dug. “Smithson doesn’t even know _he’s_ gay. He sucks cock like a champ, but he thinks it’s just, you know, something you _do_ in the Marines.”  
  
Brad’s cheeks went a little warm at that, and he wondered if he could get away with blaming it on the morning sun, shining down on their beach. He coughed.  
  
“I can see we’re going to have a little trouble with the ‘don’t tell’ part of the equation,” he said mildly.  
  
Ray shrugged, innocent. “Oh hey, Colbert, if you’re not comfortable enough in your masculinity to hear this shit, I can respect that, man…”  
  
“Shut the fuck up,” Brad said easily. “We can’t all be Rudy fucking Reyes.”  
  
“But you _would_ look good in a pair of Daisy Dukes.” Ray grinned, and Brad threw a shell at him, and Ray threw some seaweed back, and a harried looking mom with two warring six year olds threw them both a filthy look.  
  
Everything was fine. But Brad had one more thing to say, thought he should probably say it then, while they could still conceivably be considered to be bonding.  
  
“Keep it quiet,” he started. “The law’s retarded, I know, but for fuck’s sake, keep it on the down low.”  
  
Ray shot him a look. “Well jeez, dude, I wasn’t planning on announcing anything on the six o’clock news.”  
  
“Good.” Brad coughed. There was no real way to make this less gay. “Because I don’t want them to throw you out before we get to Iraq. I’ve requested to have you as my RTO. You’re riding with me.”  
  
Ray’s face slowly lit up. He talked such a big game that Brad sometimes forgot how young he was, how much something like this might mean to him. What’s more, he’d essentially just come out to his team leader, he had to be feeling unsure of himself, uncertain. Brad let himself feel a flush of pleasure, which lasted all the way until Ray opened his mouth.  
  
“Oh, oh _wow_ , Iceman. Does this mean we’re going steady?”  
  
Brad scowled. Ah, altruism. “Shut up, fucktard. All it is, is that despite the fact that you never shut your stupid whisky-tango mouth, and despite the fact that your taste in music is excretal at best, I don’t trust anyone else in the platoon on my comms. Okay?”  
  
Ray fluttered his lashes. “ _Colbert_. I’m touched. In my naughty place.”  
  
Brad groaned, and hit Ray with his shoe. “Get the fuck up. We’re oscar-mike.”  
  
Ray stood and stretched, pale feet white against the sand. “Do you prefer daisies or tulips, sugar pie?”  
  
“I’d prefer my dick up your ass if I didn’t think you’d fucking enjoy it, you degenerate freak,” Brad muttered, and Ray jogged off with a wide, filthy grin.  
  
“Now, now, we all know I’m the man in this relationship. Don’t try and fight it.”  
  
Brad considered a few choice responses to that, an involuntary smile curling his lips. But in the end he just shook his head and followed his new RTO up the beach.  
  
~  
  
No one found out on Brad’s watch.  
  
Ray invented a girlfriend, and Brad played along; and Brad continuously added to his already creative list of slurs upon Ray heritage, parentage and personal hygiene, and Ray loved it. Ray trained hard, took his job as Brad’s RTO seriously, became a superstar on his SAW. After they were given their humvees, Brad realised Ray was the only one who could keep it going for any length of time, and thus he had ‘driver’ added to his rapidly growing billet. They spent too much of their meagre salaries on the engine, and paint-job, and everything else the piece of shit needed, and even before they shipped out Brad realised that there was no way he could have done it without Ray at his side. Or at least, not easily.  
  
And when Ray started spending a lot of time with Walt Hasser, it wasn’t jealousy Brad felt. It was mild irritation at most.  
  
Brad needed his RTO. That was all.  
  
~  
  
“Is Lilley gay?”  
  
Kuwait; Motor pool; 2 am; Brad and Ray’s filthy, sandy, home away from home.  
  
“What? How the fuck would I know?”  
  
Brad shrugged. The cammie net he was trying to attach to the roof wasn’t staying where it was supposed to. Ray handed him a rivet gun.   
  
“Don’t you people have, like, a radar for that kind of thing?”  
  
Ray made a face. “ _You people?_ Jesus, Brad, and here I though _you_ people were supposed to be all enlightened and progressive and shit.”  
  
Brad raised an eyebrow. “Jews?”  
  
“No, fucknuts, Californians.”  
  
Brad snorted. The rivet gun made a satisfying _ker-thunk_ sound, the noise slamming out past the flood lights and into the night. “I’m a Californian by circumstance, not proclivity,” he said. “And what you’re telling me is that you can’t entertain me by naming all the idiots in out platoon who suck dick. What good are you?”  
  
Ray took a swig from his camelback. “If you’re looking for someone to keep you warm during the long, lonely Iraqi nights, all I can tell you is that Fick has the best lips, Walt has the best ass, but the only dude here who _pings_ my _radar_ ,” he actually made finger quotes in the air, “is Kasey fucking Kasem, and if you’re that desperate then there is just no hope for you.”  
  
Brad ignored the stuff about Fick, and the Kasem thing made him shudder, but for some reason the idea that Ray had been checking out Hasser stuck in his throat. “You been looking at Walt’s ass, Ray?” he asked tightly.  
  
Ray grinned. “Dude, Walt’s _everything_. He’s like a goddamn Calvin Klein model. If he had any idea what to do with himself he could make a fortune.”  
  
Brad frowned. _Ker-thunk_. _Ker-thunk_. “And does Walt know about this sick little adulation?”  
  
“Oh, _please_ don’t get offended on Walt’s behalf,” Ray said, oblivious to the storm clouds Brad could feel forming above his head. “The little motherfucker knows I like dudes, and he walked around all day last week without a shirt on. He gets no fucking sympathy.”  
  
 _Ker-thunk-ker-thunk-ker-thunk_. “What the fuck do you mean Walt knows?”  
  
“It’s cool. I told him before we shipped out. He is totally fine with it, and perfectly happy to torment the fuck out of me by working out in nothing but his short shorts. Not that I’d try anything with the corn-fed fucking hick anyway. He’s pretty, but between you and me, he’s a _little_ fucking gay-”  
  
“ _Person_.” Brad could feel a headache coming on. “Shut the fuck up. Are you fucking retarded? You can’t just go around telling people like a moron. You could get kicked out, you could get _beaten_ up. This is the US Marine Corps, you idiot. You could get _killed_. How do you know you can trust fucking Hasser? What if he tells Garza? And Garza tells Chaffin? And then who the fuck knows what would happen? Jesus, have some goddamned sense.”  
  
“Brad, _you_ shut the fuck up.” Ray was smiling. Why was Ray smiling? “I know that this is, like, your proto-man way of showing love and affection and letting me know that you care about me and all that homo shit, so I’m not pissed off. See? Because I’m enlightened. Now settle the fuck down.”  
  
 _Ker-thunk._  
  
“No, seriously, Brad. I am pretty sure that that net is not going fucking anywhere.”  
  
“Ray.” Brad sighed, rested his forehead against the top of the humvee. “You’re a retard.”  
  
He didn’t – he couldn’t figure out why he was so upset. He liked Walt. He trusted Walt. It was just…fucking _Ray_.   
  
“I’m your _favourite_ retard,” Ray said, and slapped his thigh. “Hand me a spanner. These fucking racks are gonna bounce off the first time we run over a haji.”  
  
Brad sighed again, and passed down the spanner. “Ray, we’re not just going to drive around the country running over Iraqis.”  
  
“Oh you say that now, Brad, but when I am one hundred percent sure that the stupid motherfuckers in charge of us aren’t basically using us as a giant demolition derby distraction in these pieces of shit, _then_ I will leave the racks alone. Okay?” He took the spanner and spun it absently in one hand, like a cheerleader twirling a baton. “Oh, and I totally lied. Fick’s gay.”  
  
Brad dropped the rivet gun on his foot. Ray was beaming at him.  
  
“You’re an asshole,” Brad muttered. “Shut the fuck up.”  
  
“Just trying to cheer you up, Bradley!”  
  
Jesus Christ, Brad thought. Jesus fucking Christ. Ray Person was going to make him crazy.  
  
~  
  
They drove through a war. Ray drove them through a war.   
  
Suddenly Brad didn’t have the time or mental energy to devote to worrying about his RTO, yet managed to find reserves of both to dedicate to the cause. Of course, Ray was oblivious, was _Ray_ , loud and obnoxious and intent on playing the game he’d invented to keep himself safe, drove everyone else insane in the process.  
  
Ray on Ripped Fuel was equal parts entertaining and infuriating, and Brad was scared more than he wanted to admit that in between all the rambling about NAMBLA and gay bars Ray would _slip_ , that he’d say something wrong, that he’d say something too true. Brad was prosecuting a war, he couldn’t be worrying about this shit, but he found himself biting the inside of his lip, chanting ‘don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell’ in his head over and over. Found himself snapping at Ray, too harsh sometimes, angry for reasons he couldn’t honestly explain.  
  
And Ray, finding ways to retaliate and show his frustration and hurt, was apparently not as enlightened as he’d made out. As enlightened as a fucking six-year-old, maybe.  
  
~  
  
“Ow! Gah!” Every time Ray slammed on the breaks, a box of grenades rammed into the back of Reporter’s head. It would almost be funny, if it weren’t so goddamned annoying.  
  
“Ray.” Brad spoke softly, gripping his calm with both hands. “What the fuck.”  
  
Ray smiled tightly and hit the gas. “Thought I saw a duckling in the middle of the road. Turned out to be a rock. My bad!”  
  
“Ray.”  
  
“On second thought, it looked a lot like the rock from fifty meters ago that I thought was a lost kitten. What are the odds?”  
  
“Ray.”  
  
“But look, dude, if you _want_ me to make Trombley cry by running over assorted adorable animals, I am down with that. Just say the word, you heartless Hebrew bastard.”  
  
“Ray, I’m sorry I-”  
  
“ _Ow_ _!_ ”  
  
It was the mortars this time, slamming into the side of Reporter’s helmet as Ray swerved randomly to the left.  
  
“Ditch in the road.”  
  
Brad rubbed his eyes. “Damnit, Ray, I’m sorry I told you to shut your inbred, Rascal Flatts-loving-”  
  
He was interrupted by a crackle over the radio, and then Poke’s irritated voice came on. “ _Hitman two-one this is two-two. Interrogative – what the fuck did you do to piss Person off this time?_ ”  
  
Brad stared bleakly out the window. “Jesus fucking Christ.”  
  
“ _Brad, can you just fucking apologise already? All this swerving is making Garza carsick. Over._ ”  
  
Brad looked at Ray. “Now see what you’ve done. Gabe’s carsick.”  
  
“Yeah, remind me never to go on a road trip with that weak-stomached motherfucker.” Ray was staring straight ahead, mouth pursed into a tight little line. Brad leaned closer.  
  
“Ray, I’m sorry.”  
  
“I don’t listen to Rascal Flatts.”  
  
“I know you don’t.”  
  
“And there is nothing wrong with Willie Nelson.”  
  
“Yes, there is, but I’m sorry I told you I was going to snap all his CDs in half and shove them up your ass one by one if you didn’t shut your stupid whisky-tango trap.”  
  
The corner of Ray’s mouth twitched. “I just don’t think it’s healthy for you to keep repressing your love for me is all, Brad,” he said, and just like that, the anger was gone. “Let it out. Shit, we’re stuck together anyhow. We can even get Rudy to perform a big homo commitment ceremony next time we stop. Although I am not converting, and your mother is just going to have to deal with that, okay?”  
  
Brad closed his eyes. The biggest sign that he was going crazy was the flush of relief he felt whenever Ray forgave him for being an asshole. It was a problem.  
  
“Corporal Person, are you a fucking faggot?” Another problem.  
  
“Ahh, the soothing, dulcet tones of young Trombley. Haven’t we fed you to an Iraqi prisoner yet, James?” Ray glanced sideways at Brad and rolled his eyes. Brad just turned away, started scoping the landscape through the sight of his gun.  
  
“Trombley, watch your sector.”  
  
“Wait, isn’t it illegal for you to even _ask_ that question?” Reporter piped up with impressive naivety, and as Ray drew breath to go off on another hyperactive rant, Brad focused on a herd of water buffalo grazing peacefully in the distance. They looked chill.  
  
He kind of wished he could go join them.  
  
~  
  
“You need to calm down. He just worries about you.”  
  
Walt’s voice drifted through the dark from the graves dug on the other side of the humvee, and Brad slowed and softened his steps, made himself small against the moonlight. It wasn’t eavesdropping, what he was doing. It was recon, he was a _Recon Marine_. And this was his team, so at a stretch it was team management.  
  
And also eavesdropping.  
  
“Do I look like I need fucking worrying about?” Ray’s voice was belligerent. “Do I?”  
  
“Yes?” Walt laughed, Walt was always laughing, always exuberant, always smiling. At least the war hadn’t scrubbed all of them raw, not yet. Brad could picture Ray’s scowl perfectly, though, his _pout_ , as Walt went on. “He’s our Team Leader. It’s his job to worry. Stop being so fucking difficult.”  
  
“He’s our team asshole,” Ray muttered, very mature, as always.   
  
Walt laughed again. “He’s allowed to be an asshole sometimes. You’re not.”  
  
Ray sighed elaborately, and Brad smiled. It was Ray’s signal that he was conceding the argument. Next would come –   
  
“Alright, fine. Jeez, Walt. I’ll consider Colbert’s gentle, delicate feelings next time he pisses me the fuck off by being a giant douche bag, if it’ll make you happy.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
And right then was when Brad should have walked away, or should have blocked his ears, or announced his presence or _something_ , because the next words out of Walt’s mouth stopped him in his tracks.  
  
“I know how you feel about him.”  
  
Wait, what – _how did Ray feel about him?_  
  
Brad froze, staring blankly out into the black night, and he really did need to walk away, he was being intrusive and rude and this was dangerous, but… _how did Ray feel about him?_  
  
Ray wasn’t having any of that line of conversation, though. Brad had to strain to hear his next words.  
  
“If you don’t stop talking right the fuck now, Hasser, I will shove my fist so far down your throat that you will be shitting my knuckles for a week.”  
  
“All right, all right, you disgusting motherfucker,” Walt said easily. “Don’t get your panties all twisted up.”  
  
“I mean it.”  
  
 _“All right.”_  
  
Brad walked away.  
  
He walked over to the command tent and caught Nate coming the other way, and they had a discussion about their mission, about the stupidity of their mission, and whether or not everyone was getting enough sleep and enough to eat, and how the supplies of LSA were going, about all of the everyday, mundane problems of fighting a war. And Brad didn’t think about how Ray might feel about him. Because he couldn’t think about it. He had to push it away and lock it up and not think about it at all.   
  
It was just the way it had to be.  
  
They were driving through a war – Ray was driving them through a war. Brad had too much to worry about. He was _waging_ actual _war_ , and there was death everywhere. Death and sadness and pain and confusion. There was anger, and there were bombs dropping, and guns firing, and children dying.   
  
There was Ray, Ray, always Ray beside him, like a part of his personal landscape, fingers clutching the steering wheel, fingers passing Brad the last few Skittles or the tin of Cope.   
  
There was the clusterfuck on the bridge and the terror of having Ray get out of the humvee in the middle of a fire fight to rail at the world. There was dishonour and the way all of their meagre ideals were being shattered one by one. Brad could catalogue them. He had a lot of time to think about the way the light was slowly going out of Nate’s eyes, and they way the spark went out of Walt all in a rush. There was Ray.  
  
There was Ray, but there couldn’t be Ray.  
  
~  
  
When Ray almost got the shit kicked out of him by Rudy – and Brad could appreciate the irony, he really could – Brad wanted to put his fist through a wall.   
  
He’d spent so long with one goal in the back of his mind – protect Ray – and he’d fucking failed. He watched Ray walk off, walked after him with hesitant steps, because all he wanted to do was shield him, shelter him, and it was so painfully insulting to Ray that Brad almost couldn’t live with himself. But he followed anyway and watched as Ray slumped to the ground, scrubbed his hands over his eyes over and over, his whole body shaking. And all Brad wanted to do was drop to his knees and grip Ray by the sides of his face and…  
  
And. Well.  
  
About a year after Brad had moved into his first house, his mother had given him an espresso maker for his birthday. Brad had made all the right noises, but inside he’d scoffed, he didn’t _need_ an espresso maker, he had his little utilitarian coffee pot and it had seen him through for years. So the giant, hulking machine took up space on his kitchen bench and he wiped it down every week and it stayed shiny and new and untouched. But then one day Poke and his wife Emily came over, and Emily made Brad what was quite possibly the best cup of coffee anyone had ever had in the _world_. Brad was stunned. He’d gone his whole life without feeling the need to make himself a double macchiato, but now that he knew he could, now that it was there, he couldn’t stop. He didn’t sleep for a week, too hopped up on caffeine, completely in love with the beautiful piece of Italian machinery that perched – _perched_ , not hulked – on his bench.  
  
This was exactly the same. It was like someone had told him that, hey, Ray existed. Ray was _right there_ , and now Brad couldn’t live without him, couldn’t not have him. And the scary thing, the stupid thing, was that if he thought about it, he realised he’d known all along.  
  
So now he wanted to drop to his knees and hold Ray and kiss him until the pain was leeched out of Ray’s face. He wanted to make his body into a bomb shelter and wrap it around Ray’s until nothing could touch him. He wanted to say all the right words, the words that would let Ray know that he was fine, and everything was fine, and that Brad would see to it that everything would stay fine.  
  
He wanted to kiss him.  
  
“Ray, you all right?”  
  
Ray gave him the look he deserved for that. “Dandy.”  
  
“Yeah, okay.” Brad sat down beside him, shoulders not quite touching. “How’s your face?”  
  
“I’m fine, Brad.” He didn’t sound fine, he hadn’t sounded fine in days, really, but this here, right now, was very far from okay. Brad looked sideways at him, at the curve of his cheekbone, the angle of his chin. Ray glanced back.  
  
“Stop staring at me like a giant freak. I’ll fucking live.”  
  
“I know.” Brad settled his gun on the ground between his spread legs and leaned back against a wall that was warm with sunlight. He closed his eyes. Thought about a few things, tried to get his head in order. Beside him, Ray shifted uncomfortably, but Brad didn’t care. If Ray got up, Brad would get up, and if Ray sat there for the next three hours, Brad would sit there for the next three hours.  
  
 _I know how you feel about him_ , Walt had said. Ray felt something about him. Yeah, well, Brad felt something, too.  
  
“When we get back home,” he said slowly, eyes still closed, “We are going to have a talk.”  
  
“Thanks for your concern, but I already know about the birds and the bees.” Ray sounded more himself, his voice steady and amused. “They aren’t really relevant to my personal situation.”  
  
Brad felt the sunlight beating into his chest, felt the heat of it coming off Ray. “It’s weird, but I still hold out hope that one day you will open your mouth and say something that doesn’t make you sound like a retarded toddler. I guess everyone has to have faith in something, right?”  
  
Ray laughed, and Brad felt the warmth of that, too, right through him. “Don’t stop believing, Brad.”  
  
Brad smiled. “I mean it about the talk, fucknuts. I’ve got some things I need to say.”  
  
Ray drew in a long breath. “You can’t say them here?”  
  
“No.” Brad opened his eyes and looked at Ray, drank him in like that first cup of espresso. “No, not here.”  
  
And there was something in Ray’s face that suggested that maybe – _maybe_ – he got it.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
~  
  
“I’m not gay.”  
  
Brad forced the words out, forced Ray to listen. Ray’s smile said it all.  
  
“Current circumstances would suggest otherwise, Colbert.”  
  
Yeah, okay. Ray kind of had him there.  
  
Ray’s mouth was hot, literally _hot_ , like he’d just been drinking coffee. And it was wet against Brad’s skin, against his neck and collarbone, against his bare shoulder. Brad let his head fall back against his bedroom wall as Ray explored, trailing that mouth everywhere he could reach. Brad’s hands were clutching at Ray’s shirt, twisting it, holding on for dear life. He thought he’d been trying to say something, right before Ray’s tongue had found the sensitive place under Brad’s ear. Something important.  
  
“I’m…fuck, Ray, _fuck_. I’m not.”  
  
“Okay, Brad.” Ray’s voice was only a little sarcastic, and Brad supposed he had the right to a little sarcasm. Because Ray was pressing his whole body against Brad’s whole body, and he could feel how hard Brad was, could feel the way he was trembling and almost hyperventilating with need. Because everything Brad’s body was doing was putting a lie to his words, and Brad didn’t know why he was even bothering.  
  
Ray didn’t know why either.  
  
“Brad, shut up. Brad, fuck, I’ve wanted this for – fuck, I don’t even know. Since the womb, probably.” His lips moved against Brad’s ear, and Brad realised he was on tiptoe to reach up there, and there was something ridiculously hot about that, about Ray straining up for him like that. Brad slumped down against the wall a little, spread his legs and pulled Ray in between them, put his hands on him. Ray was wearing too many clothes. It was a problem.  
  
“Take this off,” Brad commanded, and he didn’t wait for a reply, just tugged Ray’s shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. He let his eyes run over the sharp angles of Ray’s body, the black lines of his tattoos intersecting the lines of his muscles, the places on him where bone pressed against skin, too sharp. Brad wanted it all, wanted to touch it all. “Oh god, Ray.”  
  
“I’m am so stunned and surprised that you’re all impatient and demanding in bed,” Ray said, deadpan, and Brad was kind of stunned that Ray could actually still form sentences. Brad’s thumbs were digging into the cut of Ray’s hips, pulling him in and just rutting against him, and his mind had gone all but blank with pleasure and shock. This was happening.  
  
Ray was here.  
  
“I wanna fuck you,” Brad found himself moaning, pressing the words into Ray’s hair. “Ray, let me fuck you.”  
  
Ray pulled away a little, leaving Brad a panting heap against the wall. His dark eyes were wide, seemed to fill up his whole face.   
  
“Jeez, Brad, what kind of a girl do you think I am?”  
  
Brad groaned, pulled Ray back in. He was so warm, his skin was burning, and Brad needed more of it, needed _all_ of it. “Please,” he whispered, and then he was kissing Ray, hard, kissing him like he was never going to stop. Ray’s lips, his mouth, it was everything Brad hadn’t known it would be, it was better than he could have imagined.   
  
They ended up on the bed, somehow, and Brad lost his jeans and briefs. He felt heart-stoppingly vulnerable, laid out before Ray, but Ray just put his mouth back to work, kissing over Brad’s body like that was sex, just a slow, torturous slick of wet mouths and tongues on skin, like Brad couldn’t possibly want any more.  
  
“Ray, Ray, let me-”  
  
“I’m not letting you fuck me, you goddamn slut,” Ray whispered, looking up from where he’d settled somewhere over Brad’s stomach. Brad’s cock jerked at that, spurted precome, and Ray smirked. “You’re so pushy.”  
  
“I didn’t realise you were such a cocktease, Person,” Brad gritted out. “Put out already.”  
  
“Nuh uh.” Ray licked a line over Brad’s abs, and then lower. Brad gasped, throwing one arm over his face. Ray’s breath spilled out against Brad’s cock, and Brad was finally getting with the program. “You can fuck me another time,” Ray said. “Right now, I need your cock, Brad. You’ve got no idea how long I’ve wanted to make you come down my throat.”  
  
Yeah, Brad wasn’t going to be lasting long tonight.  
  
Ray was good at it, and Brad had to push away thoughts of him doing this with anyone else, had to push away the anger that came with those thoughts. Because Ray was his, right now, sucking on his cock and moaning and getting his face filthy and messy. He was Brad’s, Brad’s to protect and fuck, Brad’s to argue with, Brad’s to hold. He ran his fingers through Ray’s short hair, gripped his head, and Ray let him, let himself be tugged down onto Brad’s dick until he was almost choking.   
  
“Ray, I’m gonna,” Brad breathed, loving the way Ray didn’t move, loving the way Ray wanted it. “I’m gonna come, you’re gonna swallow my come…”  
  
And Ray did, just closed his eyes and swallowed it all.  
  
Brad was kind of in a daze as he pulled Ray up to lie on top of him. Ray still had his pants on, which was stupid, and Brad shoved at them ineffectually, feeling heavy and slow, like he was moving through honey. Ray kicked them down to his knees himself, pressed his cock against Brad’s stomach, and started pumping against him, panting harshly into Brad’s neck. Brad wrapped his arms around Ray’s back, squeezed him tight, and let his body be used, let Ray have whatever he wanted. Anything he wanted.  
  
He ended up covered in Ray’s jizz, and he just held Ray through it, wrapped around him, like a bomb shelter, like a humvee, like a bullet casing.   
  
Right where he was meant to be.  
  
“I’m not gay,” he murmured again, when it was over. Ray nodded, tried half-heartedly to wiggle out of Brad’s grip. Brad held him firm.  
  
“Okay, okay, you’re not gay,” Ray sighed. “Whatever, Iceman.”  
  
Brad frowned. Ray wasn’t getting it. “I’m not gay. But I’m not going to let that hold me back.”  
  
Ray looked up at him. Blinked. “Hold you back from what?”  
  
It was obvious. Why wasn’t Ray getting it? “From you.”  
  
“Oh.” Ray was quiet for a minute. Brad could feel his heart beating, could feel the way the blankets were pressed into him, could feel the cool air drifting in from the window.  
  
“So…we’re finally going steady, then?”  
  
Brad grinned into the darkness. “Ray, shut the fuck up.”  
  
He could feel Ray’s answering grin against his chest.  
  
“Yeah, okay.”


End file.
